Fitness, Meet the Captain, and Answers Are Coming!

I'm participating in 40 Days of Fitness with some of you gals. I figured I should get my goals listed somewhere. But first, a bit of history because this 40 days is a part of something much larger for me.

I've struggled with weight my whole life. In adulthood, I was able to lose weight and finally got to a nice weight for my height. But it didn't stick. Marital stress, several babies, and hormonal chaos caused my body to spiral out of control. No matter what I tried, nothing worked for very long. After the birth of my second child, everything became worse. I gained 40 pounds in 4 months. I stepped on the scale one day to find that I weighed what I had when I was 9 months pregnant with him. I was horrified! I contacted my doctor and we have been working on getting my thyroid numbers to proper levels ever since. I also learned that I was vitamin D deficient, iron deficient, and have adrenal fatigue. This sounds so short and sweet, but all of this has been a process. During this time I began walking which turned to running. I love to run. It is the only time in my day that nobody is asking me for anything! It is my peace and quiet, my zen like experience in busy days. I quickly dropped 35 pounds and then I stalled...and stalled...and stalled. For a year and a half my weight stuck. I trained for and ran a half marathon, the same 7 mile race two years in a row, lifted weights, and logged my food intake on a daily basis..My weight just stuck! Enter Maria Emmerich, a nutritionist who supports a keto diet that is grain free, gluten free, and sugar free. I gave up vegetarianism and jumped on the keto boat. I'm not saying that's what others need to do by any stretch of the imagination. It's what my body needed. Gone are blood sugar drops that cause horrible mood swings - a help when you're in a DD life especially. Gone is the weight loss plateau. I've been losing steadily since starting her plan in January of 2014. I'm at a new low right now. My doctor and I are still trying to get my thyroid levels in the proper range, but finally my numbers are going up. My adrenals seem to be healing as my body has stopped crashing on the weekends. For awhile at the end of 2013 I was having "couch weekends" My definition of a couch weekend is one in which you doze on and off all weekend in order to have enough energy to get through another work week. It was awful. I felt like a sorry excuse for a mom and a wife. But it is behind me thankfully. Anyways, if my body continues to respond, I can fit into my wedding dress again either this year or next year. I'm so excited about that. I'm going to put it on and have a photo shoot or something when I get there.

Anyways, my current goals with the 40 day fitness challenge are as follows.

1. Stick to my eating plan and stop cheating on the weekends - at least not every weekend. My eating plan is grain free, gluten free, sugar free, and very low carb.

2. Begin running again and get myself back to a good 3 mile training run level. I'm using the Ultimate 5k training plan from Run the Edge to get my running level back.

That's it. Two simple goals will do for me!

Onto the Captain. A new person has been commenting on my blog. His name is the Captain and he and Tom are one and the same. The name Captain came about as I was discussing with my husband how his sense of virtue, justice, and honor reminded me of Captain America. My husband is ex military and has always resonated with Captain America's sense of honor. I had suggested in the past trying a title such as Sir as many have found it effective in disciplinary situations and just as a way to get into the submissive mindset. But my husband was not fond of being called Sir. But after our discussion the other day about the Captain America, my husband has discovered that he likes being called Captain. Now I'm not running through the house calling him Captain every two seconds, but he has used it when I'm really struggling with submission and when I've gotten myself in trouble - usually from running my mouth! And it really does put me in a submissive mindset. I have to swallow that darn pride of mine in order to get the title out. He's also used it during a punishment. I had to count during a spanking and add Captain at the end of each number. So it was "One Captain, two Captain, three Captain, fou-our Captaaaain" and so on. He said he did that so that he could gauge how the punishment was going for me by the sound of my voice. It seems that so many things he does have such thought and consideration behind them. He really is amazing! So anyways, Captain has a blogger account now and will be commenting from time to time. Who knows? He may even add to posts now and then or even do his own post. I have no idea where this will lead. But Captain has boarded the boat to Blogland. He may also make an appearance on the D&L forums now that he is signed up!

As far as answers to questions, I want to let everyone know that they are coming. I've received some great questions and want to put a lot of thought into writing my answers. I've started working on some drafts, but it's taking me awhile to work through my thoughts and get them organized. Plus I'm trying to keep up with everyone else's answers to questions. March Q&A has Blogland positively exploding right now! Oh how I wish I could clone myself and then one of me would be responsible for keeping up with all of you. There's so many great bloggers out there that I would love to get to know better. I am doing my best to make the rounds and will get to as many of you as I can. Also, if there are any more questions, please feel free to post them and I'll add them to my list that I'm working on. I love learning from your thoughts and experiences and I'm so grateful that so many of you are willing to share those with others. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of the posting that all of you do!